Chapter Eleven
629 Words
She confronted him that evening.
She found him in the study with his documents and his usual scotch and the perfectly composed mask she’d spent weeks dismantling, and she put the letter on the desk in front of him.
He looked at it.
His jaw tightened.
She waited.
“Where did you—
“Bureau in the hall. It fell it.” She kept her voice controlled. “You knew. Before the wedding. You knew my father was going to send me.”
Julian set down his glass. “I knew there was a contingency provision.”
“A contingency.” The word tasted like something sour. “I was a contingency.”
“The contract—
“Don’t talk to me about the contract.” Her voice cracked only— only once— and she forced it steady. “I walked into that church thinking I was saving my family. I thought I was the only one who knew. I thought you didn’t know and someday I’d have to— she stopped. Started again. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
He stood. He moved around the desk and she stepped back — not from fear, from the unbearable complicated knowledge that she still wanted him, and how infuriating that was.
“Cara.”
“Answer me.”
“I intended to tell you before the three months were up.”
“Why not before?” She said. “Why not the first day? Why not— why did you let me think this was something I did alone?”
“Because— he stopped. His expression was doing something she’d never seen, something genuinely cracked open. “Because by the time I understood that you’d sacrificed, I didn’t want you to know how close you’d come to never being here. I didn’t want— he exhaled. “I didn’t want to lose you.”
The room went quiet.
She looked at him. “Julian.”
“This isn’t how I — he moved his hand in an uncharacteristic gesture of frustration. “I don’t— explain myself. I haven’t in years. I’m doing it badly.”
“You’re doing it fine,” she said, her voice unsteady.
“I knew about the provision,” he said. “But I didn’t know you. The contract brought you here. But the last five weeks — he crossed toward her, slowly, giving her every chance to step back again, she didn’t. He stopped in front of her, close enough that she could see the line of his throat, the effort it cost him to be this uncovered. “I went to that altar expecting a transaction. I don’t know what this is now, but it isn’t that.”
She studied him. “What is it?”
He lifted his hand to her face— tentative, for the first time, unsure of is welcome.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m not willing to be without it.”
She closed her eyes. She turned her face into his palm.
“You should have told me,”she said.
“Yes.”
“It was wrong.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t do it again.”
“No.” His forehead found hers. “No I won’t.”
“Julian,” she said, very quietly.
“Yes?”
“I think I might be in love with you.” She felt him go still. “Which is extremely inconvenient, given everything.”
His arms came around her.
“Tell me about it,”he said, which was more feeling than she’d expected, and she laughed against his chest, and his arms tightened, and they stayed like that while the scotch went undrunk and London went dark outside.
- Writer
